[Leica] Re: glass plate negs

["Paul Schiemer" <schiemer@magicnet.net>]

>>Photojournalism was around long before Leica. It was 'created' when the
>>first photograph appeared in a publication.
> I would hardly call it photojournalism. Journalism isn't just writing
> descriptions of what people look like. Photojournalism is more than showing
> what something looks like. It's telling stories with a picture, or
> pictures.
I've got a picture of a book burning in 1933 Germany taken with a 'box'
camera that tells a damn terrific story. It appeared in the New York Times,
on a front page, and was probably coupled with a story a reporter
contributed.  But the photo alone rivets a viewer at once; you don't even
need to read the caption!
> And besides, the first photograph to appear in a publication wasn't a long
> time before, it was something like 1892 or something like that.
Yeah but still- it was BEFORE the Leica was introduced, so you're putting
the proverbial cart before the horse. It just won't work.
> The technology of photojournalism has always been about freeing photographers
>to do what they do best, with the least amount of fuss and bother.
I don't think photojournalism has a 'technology' per se`, but it is more a
confluence of technology (especially so today). At the time the first photo
appeared in print for the masses it was a revolutionary moment; the story
telling process became embellished by more than a mere artists rendering or
illustration, it was a 'real' thing. The photos stepped off the cabinet and
out of the album, onto the newspaper. They showed the world a fraction of
time caught forever in the relating of a story.
>This world's collective memory would be quite different.
Correct on this point; what would we have without the images? not much.
Leica played an important part in the development of the 'technology' of
photojournalism, but it was not the progenitor as you claim.